


at your back

by embalmers



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: F/M, this reads more like an aerith introspective lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24776917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embalmers/pseuds/embalmers
Summary: Aerith and the shadows that follow her throughout her life.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth, Aerith Gainsborough/Tseng, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	at your back

_I got this diary for my 8th birthday so I'm going to start writing in it. Hi, my name's Aerith. If you're reading this, stop!!! _

_Mom says that I need to make more friends at school but it’s hard when I can’t hear their voices over the groans of the planet. Ava was asking about the dress I was wearing but I could feel it, someone close to her had just passed, it was telling me, so loudly! When I told her she ran out of the classroom crying and I got in trouble. A few days later and she hasn’t been at school since. It’s scary. I don’t like to know these things._

_Tseng’s been hanging out on the playground whenever I’m at school so I’ve been talking to him at lunch. I keep telling him it’s weird, adults shouldn’t be at school but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about a lot of things, meanie! If he did he’d stop bothering me._

_He’s not too bad though. He helped me sit on the fence (I felt so tall!) and I told him about the project we’re working on and he said he will try help by getting me some coloring pencils and he thought my outfit was pretty._

  
  


_The girls at school saw me with Tseng and thought he was my boyfriend!!! Yuck!_

_(It’s kinda cool though. All the popular girls have boyfriends, you know?)_

_-_

_I’ve been selling flowers since there’s an abundance of them in the church. Even when I think I’m alone, I can feel there’s someone watching me. I'm used to it, never having a moment just for myself._

_I met a boy today. He liked the flowers I was selling. He had these glowing eyes, Tseng’s told me that they’re the mark of a Soldier. I’m not so sure about that, but I thought they were pretty. And he thought my flowers were too! ♡ We’re going to go on a date next week when he gets back from his next mission._

_Next mission Zack comes back from I’m introducing him to Mom! You think she'll approve?_

_Zack hasn’t been around for a month now. It’s a pity, I was looking forward to when he got back from that mission._

_I decided to ask Tseng about it. Maybe he’d know something. And being the meanie he is, he said it was classified. He walked me home at least. I wonder if he felt bad about not being able to tell me._

_-_

_It’s been a while since I’ve written here. It’s both exhilarating and exhausting trying to find hiding places around the slums where the Turks can’t find me. They are more relentless these days. I found a great spot and the person I share it with won’t tell. He has a tattoo on his arm that I tried asking about it but it looks like he’s too sick to answer._

_There was a boy I met today and just when I thought I’d put Zack to the back of my mind, it all came back to me. We sat on the slide like we had back then. There were those same glowing eyes. He’s even the same rank of Soldier._

_I wanted to ask, hey, have you seen him? Did you know him? He’s called Zack, he disappeared five years ago. But I decided not to. He’s moved on, probably found a girl and I should move on too, find a boy._

_I’m trying to! It’s not easy when you’re being followed all the time._

_What would I even say if he did know him, know where and who he’d settled down with? Would I feel relief at the closure or hurt at my fears being true?_

_No matter where I go, everyone follows me. Turks, the Planet’s cries, Zack…_

-

Tseng’s no longer the shadow on the playground or the strange suited man playing the voyeur in her church doorway but an enemy Turk watching her every move, hunting her, no, Cloud. No, no, _her_ down. Not much has changed. But there was always the softness twined into his actions like when he’d carry her home as a child if she’d stayed out too late, too tired to stay awake in his arms and kick up a fuss about it.

Cloud tells a story of Nibelheim. Aerith finally notices that the sword at his back is the same kind that Zack had. There’s a tightness in her throat at the realization.

She’s given her answer of what closure would feel like in Gongaga. It wasn’t really closure, not at all.

They had known each other only a month and a half but she was fond of that feeling of butterflies he put in her stomach, the way she could feel herself smiling so hard in her cheeks at his silly jokes. It was evident to the fleetingness of it all that Aerith didn’t even know he grew up here. Part of her wondered where he was that was so important he couldn’t even let his parents know. The other part drew a line under it to move on, ruling that she would never know and there was no point dwelling.

~~(But what girl can forget about their first love completely?)~~

There’s no diary for her to write in now as she’s guided through the city of the Ancients, no sound of a pen scratching the paper to ease the voices leading her way to the shrine. She can't run to her room anymore, slam the door and curl up on her bed to shut away the weight of growing up with everyone watching her, with everyone who's become one with the planet talking to her.

Every sunny afternoon Aerith used to seat herself in the bed of flowers in the church soaking up the warmth, knowing fully well she couldn’t let herself relax because of the eyes on her out of view. Now it was the same, as much as she pretended to be focused on her destination, she couldn’t shake the awareness of someone watching her movements. They followed her steps, her expressions, her breath, even when she held it. 

Sephiroth’s eyes are the same shade as hers, the only difference being a cat eye slit. 

He was no Ancient. She was still the last remaining Cetra. Thus her fate was sealed.

Let his gaze follow her, like all the others had, like their presence had always been at her back, in her memory, never leaving her. There was never a moment she had to herself even now, when she was at the very end, she could feel him hanging over her just out of frame. She would let him.

**Author's Note:**

> been replaying ff7 cause lockdown still hasnt ended for me yet and im getting antsy so i needed something to do
> 
> on the replay im reminded how i really only care about aerith when shes put with either  
> a. freak men  
> b. a guy who just ghosted outta her life  
> the og game has a lot more emphasis on zack being just a passing person in her life much like reality where people come and go and sometimes we dont know why. i really am not a fan of what the compilation does with their relationship and making it into some "epic romance first love best love" or putting zack on a pedestal when hes just a normal guy with many flaws
> 
> i dont have anyone checking for spelling/grammar errors so sorry if there are any!  
> thanks for reading


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